Pomegranate
by Reject Product Saka
Summary: Tomoe reflects from the afterlife upon the grief and love she spent since childhood. Spoilers ahead.


Disclaimer: Rurouni Kenshin/Samurai X and their lovely characters belong to Nobuhiro Watsuki. I'm a broke fan girl who happens to write fanfiction. I'm just borrowing characters for a nonprofit work.  
  
Konnichi wa, minna-san! Umm...yeah. My second fic. More angst romance. Set from Tomoe's point of view. Spoilers ahead. I'm not sure I got all the names and such down correctly, so please contact me if there's something off. R&R. Arigato!  
  
| Saka |  
  
[ Pomegranate ]  
  
Kiyosato.  
  
My earliest memories of acquaintance with you, my love, were in a small temple on the outskirts of Edo. We were but children, and had met there on mere coincidence. I had been running errands for my mother, whose memory has faded away over the years, her face and gentle touch lost from the time I was nine. I was holding a bouquet of irises, sniffing their soft fragrance with all the care that could only belong to a child.  
My eyes were sealed under light lids, trying my best to become lost in the scent that consequently reminded me of my mother – how a tall voluptuous vase of irises would always be set by the shoji of her room, how when you entered, you smelled the irises, then the scent of white plums. I remember as a young girl sneaking into her room and using her perfume, but then I'd use too much and she would scold me while cleaning fussily away with a linen cloth at the area where I had applied it, then gently rub it in properly.  
Something of the like had occurred that morning, and I then walked – glided like a beautiful fairy, I had imagined – past the temple. You had been there, wearing a hakama too large for you and sauntering like a true samurai through the rows of pomegranate with your father's sword, too big and heavy for your nimble body. We had passed, neither paying great attention to where we were going, paying attention only to our own fantasies and dreams, or would have passed. It is with a light heart that I say you then tripped over your father's katana, which had been lazily dragging through the soil, falling into me. We had rolled in a pile of limbs and loose clothing down the grassy slope lining the stone staircase connecting the temple to the street below.  
We at last had gritted to a stop before a slender pomegranate tree, you taking the impact, my small body slamming into yours, then knocking the crimson blossoms from their branches. I had let out a small gasp as your father's sword landed in front of my bulging eyes, cleaving the grass. Immediately upon accessing the situation, we had both blushed furiously, then laughed uneasily and gotten up. You gazed up the hill, and if possible, turned a deeper shade of red, gesturing up the hill. My previously bought irises lay crushed under the sword sheath.  
  
"G-Gomen nasai," you mumbled, looking away. "I...I should have been more careful."  
  
"I-It's alright. It was my fault. I was not paying attention." I began to trudge with difficultly up the slope, retrieving the sword sheath. "H- Here," I muttered, bowing my head and nearly thrusting it in his face. "A- Arigato."  
  
It seemed to shake your whole frame to heave the katana out of the ground and slide it into its proper sheath. I giggled, covering my mouth, but found it hard to control. Soon I began to elapse into pure laughter. You had stared at me as if I was mad, and I had apologized – before laughing more. Now you asked between your own cries of laughter, and we had spent the better of five minutes laughing beneath the blossoms.  
  
We met at random by the temple. Whenever I went out, I tried to return home past the antediluvian building, in hope of meeting you. We often shared thoughts, and you often commented on my scent – my mother's scent – of plums.  
  
Then one day I didn't see you. A day turned into a week, then a month...what happened to you, my love? It was then that my mother was pregnant, and had elapsed into violent fits. It was during one of these, especially so, that the doctors fretted and wailed about, their deep voices echoing about the house. I had stood by my mother's side, holding her marble hand, which in turn clenched mine, clenched mine as if it were the very shore of life, and she was to be swept away into the River. Her cries and pants are forever entombed in my mind. Her tears fell freely, and for a moment it seemed as if she was burning in the flames of Eternity themselves. It was with one last strangled cry that suddenly her efforts calmed. My brother had been released from her womb, but she not from the clutches of death. Her last breaths came in wasted gasps, hard, harsh, yet suddenly she seemed calm. I watched and felt in horror as her grip on my hand loosened, and suddenly, she breathed her final word.  
  
"Enishi.."  
  
For many days I mourned, and for many nights I did not sleep. Yet your death brought me even more grief...for I saw that my selfish wishes had brought your demise.  
  
When I was seventeen, father had arranged a marriage for me with the son of a powerful Shogunate family. He spoke words to me, meaningless words, saying marriage into another samurai family would build strong ties between the clans. Since my mother's death, I had become half hollow, as if half of my heart had been cut out. I cared not anymore who I was married to.  
But I rejoiced when I saw your face, smiling and kind. It was the face of my childhood, of forgotten memories buried under grief. I saw hope. The pomegranates had come again.  
  
But for what reason did you leave? There was nothing in Kyoto for you, a kind beautiful young man such as yourself. Did you want to impress your family? Father? Myself? You left without a trace, without counsel, leaving naught but your empty journal and a dagger. When I heard you had died in the streets of Kyoto, the rest of my heart shattered. It was if I was a shell, derived of love, of the ability to hold onto the ones of loved. Was I so cold, so empty, that I froze the very beings of you and my mother? The very souls?  
The women of the house chatted amongst themselves, yet I heard them through the rice paper walls. They talked of your death, your time in Kyoto...and why you had gone. To please me. To show me that you could now wield that heavy blade properly, so I could marry a rich and powerful man.  
  
Iie, koibito.  
  
All I wanted was to reside with you, my childhood friend, in this beautiful house with my father. Amidst the pomegranates, the irises...Didn't you know?  
I had sat in my room for days, like I had after my mother's death, grieving over your, spilling tears of blood. Noises, simple music wrecked my senses, my mind. I couldn't eat, sleep...I couldn't live. Not without you. I didn't feel Enishi's small hands on my back, hear his heart-felt cries, feel his hot tears soak through my kimono. In some sub-conscience I recognized him...yet I wished those hands, that voice, were yours.  
Your family and the women of the house shunned me. Father became secluded and wrapped in the matters of the Shogunate. Enishi, despite his innocent efforts, brought only childish warmth. I wished not for comfort, but the revenge I believed would free my soul. I knew your killer was an assassin of the Chouji , so I traveled to Kyoto. I took up part-time jobs at restaurants, if only to sustain enough yen to buy me food and shelter. The customers, rowdy warriors that smelled of blood and sake often smiled and called to me; I returned to these gestures only a blank expression and sigh.  
  
It was there, in Kyoto, that I met him.  
He was not a ruthless killer, I found. He had a soul, and a heart. He was a boy drafted into the bloody wings of war with the prospect of making a new future for Japan. A new, better future. He wanted to help people, yet by helping one side, he was only making the other grieve. He was aware of this, and thus carried a blank resolution. But I saw beneath it, he was but a boy that didn't belong here.  
  
Like you, my love.  
  
But it was he I needed to kill. My new occupation was that of somewhat of a double agent. I had been assigned to go undercover with him as husband and wife. We worked in the countryside as druggists. It was a happy existence, my love, one of the happiest times I spent since our time beneath the pomegranates. But it was not to be. I had my loyalties, and I had to leave him, to betray him. It was then you came to me, my love, when I was alone and uncertain yet again. You smiled, and I remembered.  
  
Us, together.  
  
I ran into the snow, hurried. It was like mother was dying again. I needed to be there, had to be there, to help him.  
  
We stood in the snow. My body trembling with the pressure, trying to muster the strength to hold back Tatsumi's blade. Himura Kenshin, Hitokiri Battousai, lay on the ground behind me. I wanted him to live. I thought that he had melted my cold exterior, and we were meant to be. We'd return to our small farmhouse and live a life in peace. But it was not to be.  
  
I belt the cold metal pierce my bosom, sliding sleekly through me and in turn into the large chest before me. I gasped, watching my own blood and Tatsumi's burst out into the white snow, leaving a river of crimson. It was cold...so cold. I never knew I could feel this way, so calm. I remembered Mother's soft features as she faded away. I remembered...  
  
Kenshin released his blade from between us. I could feel with my last breath his body shaking, trembling with grief.  
  
Don't cry...  
  
He laid me down upon his lap, cradling my head gently. I looked up at his face, and it was as if your hand guided mine. I lifted your dagger, softly, to his face. The scar I knew instinctively you had made there was a memorial to your memory. I gasped, my eyes clouding over, every ounce of strength in my body straining to see his face. The blade slid across his soft skin. If I could, I would have smiled, sat up and comforted him, but it was too hard. I was numb, so wonderfully numb.  
  
Good-bye, my second love.  
  
As my surroundings faded, I saw not his face anymore, but yours, my sweet Kiyosato. You were rocking me back and forth, like you used to do when we lay beneath the pomegranate trees. You said it would be alright, and we would walk again to the temple.  
  
I feel like I'm finally alive again, Kiyosato. The pomegranate trees are blooming. 


End file.
